Ah, you know how it is, you spend your life studiously, barely noticing as you sleepwalk into a loveless marriage to make your father happy; then, on your honeymoon you almost die of tuberculoses, and the sight of a lithe young arab boy, naked beneath his gandourah, turns your bookish head. Then it’s a different life you seek, one guided by the pursuit of pleasure.
And so our pederastic hero cruises around northern Africa, then Italy, neglecting his saintly wife. There are plenty of nice dichotomies here for the English student: Michel constantly attracted by ‘the other’, be it the East, the rural, the life of action. But that’s all so obvious it’s not really worth discussing. It was written in, like, 1901, so the deviancy is implied; still, his transgressions are hinted at clearly enough to feel an empathetic thrill as he wakes up to life. The destination is not particularly mind-blowing, but the journey is told beautifully, and the translator is invisible.
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